"INDEPENDENT LONG SHOTS OPEN DEBATE, CHOICE"

Daytona News-Journal
September 24, 2000

by Pamela Hasterok

Floridians have made it easier for independent candidates to run for office, but in America's two-party political system, it's as hard as ever for them to get elected.

Two years ago, Florida voters changed the state constitution, simplifying the requirements for third party and independent candidates to get on the ballot. That move has opened the gates for candidates to run for office without belonging to either the Democrat or Republican parties - five times as many independent candidates are running now, compared to 1998.

But while 16 percent of Florida voters are registered independent and an additional 2 percent claim membership in third parties such as Reform, Green and Libertarian, not one statewide office is held by anyone other than a Republican or a Democrat. No state legislators are independent or belong to a third party, nor any of Florida's members of Congress.

So why would any candidate who wants to win choose to run as an independent or in a third party? Are they nuts, or just gluttons for punishment?

Willie Logan, formerly a Democratic lawmaker from Opa-Locka, now an independent candidate for the U.S. Senate, has heard the question so many times he responds as though there were only one possible answer, as though the questioner is just a bit daft.

"I'm an American. It's from the way I was raised," he said. "I'm not going to allow only the two major parties to participate in the discussion."

Congressional candidate Deborah Katz Pueschel responds more viscerally.

"I'm thoroughly disgusted with both parties," says the former air traffic controller.

Katz Pueschel spent the first 15 years of her voting life as a Democrat and the next 12 as a Republican. Disenchanted altogether, she became an independent last year. She's running for the congressional seat being vacated by GOP leader Tillie Fowler, whose district covers parts of Flagler and Volusia counties.

As for how she plans to win against a well funded, well known and well liked GOP candidate and a surging Democratic newcomer, she doesn't really know. Yet she believes she can.

If Jesse Ventura could overcome two well known and well financed candidates to become Minnesota's governor, she figures she can beat the odds in the much smaller arena of a congressional district.

Ventura has achieved a sort of hero worship among those who would attempt to repeat his feat. Independent candidates treat his victory as a touchstone in their own journeys to win high office, despite low expectations for their success. But can a Floridian pull off a Ventura-like win without the money, organization and status conferred by the major parties?

In short, no. Political experts explain Ventura as a one-time wonder, a difficult model for other hopefuls to pattern themselves after. To put it bluntly, not many political candidates are professional wrestlers. Nor are many states' voters as angry as Minnesotans were at the political gridlock created by the two major parties. And few independent candidates can raise enough money to qualify for public campaign funds - Ventura did only at the 11th hour.

American voters are so accustomed to thinking in terms of two parties it's hard for them to place credence in a third. That's a pity.

Independent candidates offer voters the chance to elect a free agent, one unencumbered by the special-interest demands woven into the fabric of the two parties. Imagine, a representative at liberty to choose the policies that best serve his constituents. That's a far cry from the lockstep thinking required by the major parties, whose members sacrifice independence at the altar of power.

Many of this state's voters are dissatisfied with the Republicans and Democrats. But they express that disillusionment not by voting for a third-party candidate, but by not voting at all. Floridians have shown they want more choices in their elections. The question is, will they show it at the polls Nov. 7?